September – That the Secular Comboni Missionaries, while conducting their X General Assembly centred on the icon of the mustard seed, may live in the certainty that Christ will cause the seeds of the Gospel sown by them to bear abundant fruit. Lord hear us.
“The pilgrim Church is by its nature missionary” (AG 2; cf. Mt 28, 16-20; Mc 16, 15-20), but by its nature, it is also ministerial (cf. Rom 12, 4-8). Ministeriality and mission are closely linked since the mission becomes concrete and is realised through different ministries. A ministry is a service for the common good and for the development of the mission of the Church. Therefore, we may say that the Church is missionary in that it is substantially ministerial and a servant. In the context of the year of ministeriality which we are living in the Institute, in this article, we will dwell especially on the ministerial and charismatic aspects of the evangelising mission of the Church in the parish.
In light of the Second Vatican Council, we know that all baptised persons are called to be evangelisers since they participate in the three ministerial functions of Christ who is Priest, Prophet and King, and share in the mission (cf. LG 30-38). First of all, ministries may be classified as two main groups: Lay Ministries and Ministries of the Order of Priesthood. If we start from a hierarchical view of the Church and a clerical view of pastoral, lay ministries become suffocated or reduced to supporting the priest and his mission. Consequently, pastoral agents become mere collaborators, assistants, “altar boys” or, as happened in many missions, “mission boys”, even though they were adults. There are also some priests who dedicate much of their time to activities proper to the Brothers or other lay ministries, leaving little time for the ministries proper to their priesthood.
Another widespread practice is that of dividing parishes into pastoral zones, each of which is entrusted to a priest. Each one organises and administers his own zone, his own pastoral, his own team, projects, people, mission and money. The zone becomes his property where other missionaries may not intervene and concerning which, at times, they may not even express an opinion. Each one has to respect the territory of the others. The XVIII General Chapter and Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium appeal to us to begin a process of conversion, to pass from clerical and hierarchical models of mission and pastoral to models based upon ministries raised up by the Holy Spirit, to live the spirit of Vatican II. In virtue of our baptism, we are all equal: disciples of Jesus but with different vocations and gifts (cf. LG 30). Using the expression created by the Latin American bishops in Aparecida and adopted by Pope Francis, we affirm that we are all missionary disciples of Jesus Christ (cf. EG 119-121.130-131, Aparecida 184-224).
It is important that we emphasise that the baptised are, first of all, disciples of Jesus Christ and that the encounter with Christ transforms them into missionaries. Jesus, who has fascinated them, sends them out to evangelise. “Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel” (EG 20). Each missionary disciple ought to make their own the passion of Paul for the mission and exclaim: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel” (1 Cor 9,16). Evangelisation is not only the duty but also the right of every missionary disciple of Jesus Christ.
Today it is fundamentally necessary to grow in ministerial plurality. Priestly and lay ministries are gifts of the Holy Spirit, given so that they may complement a common goal: “
There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done but always to the same Lord, working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same Spirit working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose” (1 Cor 12, 4-7). The mission today demands ministerial pastoral models. A ministerial missionary parish is dynamic because, through listening to the Spirit and interpreting the signs of the times, it discovers, conceives, creates and develops new ministries and pastoral strategies.
I now propose two pastoral plans based upon ministries that are already functioning in different parts of the world.
I will not refer to ordained ministries since they are part of the priestly vocation, but I will emphasise lay ministries.
In order for a ministerially organised parish to function well, it is fundamentally necessary to be able to count on a parish council that includes those responsible both for ordained and lay ministries, so that, in communion, they may accompany the evangelising process, discern the signs of the times so as to understand which pastoral options are suitable for the present context and time and which ministries are necessary to carry out the missionary work. It is equally important to rely on a spirituality that may help the evangelisers to know and love more their vocation as missionary disciples of Jesus Christ.
Fr. Fernando Mal GatKuoth
To discover the mission and take care of it is also to look at small faces and images that capture the immense joy of being a mission, in this case, among the GUMUZ. The Gumuz (inhabitants of the Benishangul-Gumuz region) are the people that God has destined to our CLM friends in Ethiopia as a place of mission and sharing. They went there to find love and today, in this video, we see a little (just a little…) of what missionary work is. The rest of what can be shared (and which is a lot) remains for a good conversation and listening to the testimony of these missionaries.
Ethiopian CLM
Our July meeting was determined by three things: continuing our work with the peace posters, participating in the zoom meeting of the CLM in Europe and sharing spiritually and personally with the MCCJ community in Nuremberg.
For the work on the peace posters we have improved and closed more clearly the scheme that links the posters. We also decided on the steps of this project until the end.
The participation in the meeting through zoom gave some of us the first possibility to feel personally the internationality of the CLM movement. The representatives of each country spoke about the challenges of the “mission in Europe” in the context of their country and how they try to respond to these challenges.
Together with the MCCJ and the Pauline Sisters we prayed for vocations, celebrated Mass and cultivated unity in a “grill” party.
After the long break due to Covid 19, this meeting did us all a lot of good.
CLM, Germany
This past weekend we had the opportunity to meet online at a European level.
The meeting organized by the European Committee for all the CLM from the different countries had as its central theme “The challenges of living our missionary vocation as lay people in Europe“.
We had the opportunity to expose each country’s reality. Many of the contributions helped us to enter into the reality of the Church in Europe, the difficulties we are finding in sharing our faith, the decline of religiosity and religious culture among young people and the lack of vocations.
The geographical component of the mission is something that we are gradually overcoming and together we are discovering the missionary needs that we find in Europe. The old continent needs our missionary presence, the hope of the Gospel and solidarity, which is an expression of our faith, among the most vulnerable groups.
We had the opportunity to expose each country’s reality. Many of the contributions helped us to enter into the reality of the Church in Europe, the difficulties we are finding in sharing our faith, the decline of religiosity and religious culture among young people and the lack of vocations.
The experiences of each of the five groups give us new ideas to be present in these moments where people need a hopeful presence.
To rediscover the video calls as a way to remain united, to pray together, to continue our formation and to carry out solidarity actions. We have rediscovered the domestic Church, responsible and protagonist of its faith.
The confinement that at first disconcerted us gave place to numerous initiatives that allowed us to remain united and in prayer and at the same time initiatives that we were opening up to others who were also seeking to share and continue to grow in those moments.
We also shared the difficulties of mobility at this time and how this has affected our companions who were already ready to leave the country to serve in America or Africa.
These are moments in which we must be in solidarity with all those who are having a hard time. The difficulties are becoming more acute for many, especially for those who were already on the lowest rung of the ladder, such as the immigrant population and other precarious sectors. On the other hand, we must remain attentive to the needs of our brothers and sisters in other continents. The pandemic is hitting almost every country and even those that do not suffer a large number of cases are being punished economically by the need to confine their population. Now more than ever we understand how small and needy our common house is and the need for solidarity among us all.
We must be part of a change of priorities in today’s world, continue to be committed to the education of the young so that they grow up knowing this need, but at the same time continue to fight for a more fair world from wherever we are.
Europe is a place of missionary presence, of a missionary presence which is close to the people and a sign of hope among the most needy of the continent (materially and spiritually because we cannot forget that to nourish this spirit and the values which make a more united society possible is fundamental). But at the same time a missionary presence that continues to open Europe to the world, motivating towards responsibility for a better, more human and more fraternal world. That it puts an end to the inequalities that the economic system imposes in so many countries, placing the person at the center and where the economy and the structures are put at the service of human beings.
The mission remains more necessary than ever. To announce that we are all brothers and sisters, that we must be in solidarity with one another, building a better world for all, caring for nature which is on loan from future generations and allowing a dignified life for all the peoples of the earth.
Our meeting ended with a prayer where each one, in their own language, could share hopes, petitions and give thanks by placing everything in the hands of the Father who takes care of us and accompanies us.
Comboni said that if he had a thousand lives he would give them all for the mission. We want to offer ours and we want to encourage all of you who share these concerns to join us in this great work which is so necessary.
Greetings
Alberto de la Portilla
